Ahh, the holidays. Such a joyous time of year. A trip to the mall for me is to be going into battle. The stress levels, the aggressiveness of meeting the demands, the push, push, push. The enormous amount of emotions from so many people flooding into me like water to a dry sponge makes me want to run outside for "air" (sometimes I do). After the experience of such holiday joy, my emotions are in such disarray that it takes the rest of the day to restore some semblance of inner calm and more time for the emotional bruising to heal. For me, "surviving the holidays" is not a yuletide jest, but a masochistic ritual.

What is being "human"? Is it like being like everyone else where you don't feel the depth of the lives of others through their emotion? (Boring) Is it like being limited to 5 senses? (Impairment) My choice is to me more than human! Celebrate!!!